16 April 2013

There was a science and skepticism conference in
Manchester last weekend, where a lot of smart people got together to
give their critical thinking skills and scientific skepticism some healthy
flexing. Yet what was otherwise a commendable affair was marred by the frankly
silly title (and topic) of one discussion panel: Is Science the New Religion?

How can fluent English speakers so
egregiously misuse the word ‘religion’? Do they need to have its proper
definition tattooed on the inside of their forearms for convenient
reference?

One person who won’t be facepalming with me
in solidarity is the journalist Brendan O’Neill, who was on that ridiculous
panel and uttered suitably ridiculous things about science and politics.
O’Neill thinks that politics is in danger of being influenced by too
much science. He warns us:

The worst thing is that
politicians’ increasing reliance on science, and some scientists’ willingness
to go along with this, shrinks the space for public, mass engagement in
policymaking. The more politics becomes an experts’ pursuit, the less room
there is for the public’s ideological or passionate or angry or prejudicial
views.

And this is a bad thing?
O’Neill gives voice to a sadly common anti-intellectualism displayed by those
who think that, in the words of Isaac Asimov, their ignorance is just as good as an
expert’s knowledge. O’Neill also confuses the (very real) problem of
politicians cherry-picking scientific data that support their biases with the actual
process of science; the former is a subjective vice on the part of dishonest politicians, while the latter is a provisionally objective pursuit of
knowledge about reality that isn’t beholden to partisan views on government. Science
is certainly affected by politics through government
funding, laws and regulations, but no amount of political pressure can force
physicists to change the laws of nature, or get biologists to concede that the
theory of evolution is false.

The comedian and science populariser Robin
Ince was on that panel with O’Neill, and he was “startle-eyed” by the copious
amounts of inanity gushing from his fellow panelist. Ince comments on O’Neill’s
anti-expert rhetoric in a sharply humorous blog post, which includes this
observation:

There is a gaggle that
seems to consider that expertise is an unfair advantage, that all opinions are
equal; an idea that people who are experts in climate change, drugs or
engineering are given unfair preference just because they spend much of their
life studying these things. I do not think it is fascism that heart surgeons
seem to have the monopoly of placing hands in a chest cavity and fiddling with
an aorta. Though I have my own opinions on driving, I have decided to let
others do it, as I have never taken a lesson. I do not consider myself
oppressed by the driving majority. I own an umbrella and a thermometer, but I
do not believe this is enough to place me on a climate change advisory
body.

A charitable reading of O’Neill’s arguments
might suggest that he is simply decrying ‘scientism’: the unjustified belief
that science holds all the answers to all our problems, including ethical ones.
I’m not convinced that O’Neill is actually criticising scientism. His comments
clearly show that he is uncomfortable with scientific
expertise itself, with the idea that politics is
improved by the input of the best scientific knowledge we
currently possess in various fields. O’Neill’s position is in stark contrast to
that of the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, who is a strong critic of scientism
yet is a champion for science. In the aptly titled chapter ‘The Limits of
Science’ in his book Answers for Aristotle, Pigliucci
writes:

The idea underlying this
chapter is that science is neither the new god nor something that should be
cavalierly dismissed. As a society, we need a thoughtful appreciation not only
of how science works but also of its power and its limits. This isn’t just an
(interesting, I would submit) intellectual exercise: how we think about science
has huge personal and societal consequences, affecting our decisions about
everything from whether to vaccinate our children to whether to vote for a
politician who wants to enact policies to curb climate change. We cannot all
become experts, especially in the many highly technical fields of modern
science, but it is crucial for our own well-being that we understand the
elements of how science works (and occasionally fails to), that we become
informed skeptics about the claims that are made on behalf of science, and that
we also do our part to nudge society away from an increasingly dangerous
epistemic relativism.

Pigliucci has an acute, even wise, understanding of both
the limits of science and its power to affect change for the better, especially
when politicians grant it the respect it deserves. O’Neill on the other hand
just doesn’t like uppity nerds oppressing common folks like him with their
‘facts’ and ‘expertise’.